Celia Cumani Aintree

[Bengalensis]

As my excursion in using Alclad Candy to paint Psylocke's suit went quite well I feel confident enough to start this steel dressed beauty. She's called "Celia Cumani Aintree" and is a character from an animee called "Walkure Romanze". As usual I don't know much more about her, she just ended up in my stash as I like her knight inspired steel outfit and that she look rather confident in it. She's 1/8 scale and about 19 cm tall.

The blue skirt in the supplied instruction photo looks nice and contrasting, but as I'm not terribly concerned about accuracy to the original character I'm considering flattening the pleats to make the skirt too in steel with some gold/brass trim. It seems more fitting, but we'll see as I go on. She can be built either posing with her helmet or a holding a 25 cm long jousting lance. I haven't decided yet, but I'm leaning towards the helmet. Here are all the parts.

I will try painting her outfit mainly in Alclad, probably steel as a base and some toning with darker and brighter Alclad shades. There's also a lot of engraved detail and sharp edges that could respond well to some dark washing.

[Shar2]

Oh, she looks very nice. Will watch the build with interest. I may even get one of my figures out of the stash.

[BeeKay]

_{I'm gonna sit down and watch this baby come to life - onwards Jorgen!}

[Bengalensis]

Thanks guys, I hope you won't be disappointed. Would be great to see another figure build Dave!

I've made a start and as usual I begin with the legs. They are nicely moulded and there's not that much to clean up, but nevertheless it took an hour each due to all the fine detail.

But with that done I could soon do some dry fitting and small adjustments of the fit.

And then start using some glue. This I can fit permanently and still have good spraying access.

The skirt wouldn't fit first as the resin was far too thick inside. It took quite some trimming with the Dremel to make slip down in position.

The problem is the same here; I need to remove a lot on the inside to get the main torso part to slip down over the skirt. But now I had already cleaned the work bench so that will be a job for tomorrow, I hope.

[infofrog]

Looking good

Rick

[Billydick]

This is going to be another cracker from you Jorgen - and another of E2046 exquisite castings ! Rock On !

Is that a lance she's holding in the instructions ?

BillyD

[Bengalensis]

Thanks guys. Yes, that's a long jousting lance. There's two different right arms in the kit depending which you want to build; holding lance or helmet.

[giemme]

Here's another interesting one ... (do you ever sleep, by the way? LOL!)

Following this ...

Ciao

[Vicarage Vee]

Did they come up with the name for this one by cutting up a copy of The Racing Post & picking up random words?

Oh & Joergen, your skills are immense!

[Natter]

Sexy resin girls, superb world land speed cars, barking mad skeletons, brilliant cars and vans, unbelievably realistic motorcycles. How do you manage to fit in a life?

[Bengalensis]

Thanks a lot for your kind support guys!

I have no idea how the creators come up with their names, I have wondered myself many times, but they are very much focusing on the Japanese home audience and it probably works there.

How do I fit in a life? Well, I think that doing all this varying stuff is an important thing that makes me wanting to fit in that life. Or; this is life, at least an important part of it. Without it the rest doesn't work.

I thinned out the flare a lot, it's now scaringly thin in places, but it slips down in place fine now.

The skirt had two large mounting blobs for the two steel flaps hanging down the front. I removed all traces of them so I can place those flaps correctly without any interference when time comes.

It's all meant to fit something like this.

[Shar2]

She's coming along nicely Jorgen.

BTW, have started one of mine too.

[Knikki]

What no energy weapons?

Thats looks like a hell of alot of resin you have removed to get the bits to fit, I gather that those with not so great modelling skills would struggle to get all the pieves to fit?

[Bengalensis]

Thankfully no energy or mental weapons, if anything there will be good old steel here.

Yes I have removed a lot of resin, but it's not as bad as it may look. I could have removed a lot less only where it interfered, but I like to thin out edges like these as it can enhance the overall result when painted.

[Bengalensis]

I spent the better part of the evening cleaning up the arms and associated parts, time consuming but without problems otherwise. But she's so far the most uncooperative figure I've worked with when it comes to doing some dry fitting and mocking up with blue tac. Everything kept falling apart when the last bit would go on, so it wasn't easy to get a good look and some pictures. It will look more natural when her head and hair goes on.

I also tried the part for the option holding the lance. It ended up 31 cm long, not 25, but this option doesn't quite work for me.

[Shar2]

Blimey, that's a long lance. I don't think it really works either.

[Bengalensis]

I did a bit more tonight. Her cape needed a bit of adjustment to fit right as it wouldn't first tuck in under her armour at the back, but with a bit of scraping and sanding it crept in place.

[Pete in Lincs]

What big feet she seems to have.

Obviously to counterbalance

certain other attributes.....

[spaddad]

steady on Pete old boy, steady.

[Bengalensis]

In between other work I have been cleaning up all of Celia's hair parts, and as is usually the case with these figures it mean some work. The main part here is one large piece and five small pieces added on. Those joints will need some filler and sanding here and there to smooth them out.

This is a bit loose and wobbly dry fit, it's all a bit tighter together when firmly joined, but it gives an idea. It all seems to fit good enough to proceed.

[infofrog]

Looking good

Rick

[HOUSTON]

Jorgen,

She looks quite exquisite in those colors and I look forward to seeing your mastery and art work on this young lady.

The detailed on the kit is Superb.

I enjoy watching your figures come alive and look flawless.

AWESOME start.

{I ran out of MY Likes quota so will be back to do that later }

[HOUSTON]

Grrrr ..ran out again...

[Billydick]

Still can't get over how good these E2046 sculpture are..... looking forward to your finish on this one Jorgen.

BillyD

[Bengalensis]

I've worked away a bit on Celia the last two days. A little filler on the hair pieces was sanded smooth and she was pinned to a base, then it was time for paint. A layer a white primer sprayed first.

Then I started working on the steel. After some consideration I didn't want to do it too bright, so I choose Alclad steel as the base. I started on a new bottle. After a minute of spraying it became grainy and I discovered a thick glop at the bottom of the airbrush cup. Now that's not how they usually behave. I cleaned everything up and started again with the Alcad shaken and stirred utterly well. Same result. After a very troubled session I had it all sprayed, but it didn't quite look as smooth and steel-like as it usually does. I sprayed some highlights and shadows with Aluminium and Jet Exhaust and at least it looked better.

I put that aside and sprayed the cape which turned out quite well, it will get a few brushed shadows later. I decided on various shades of purple for all her clothing which is not steel.

I then went on with more paint. It all went well, but the steel looked just worse on me as the day went on. I did some comparison of my Alclad jars and found that the new steel paint isn't as smooth as the old I had, the contents falls to the bottom so much quicker, and the same goes for some other new Alclad jars I have. Not sure what is happening here. At that point I had lost all attempts to imagine this would look any good. Nothing would help it up.

Nothing, except a good bath and scrubbing in thinner of all the steel parts. There was no way this could go on.

And here we are after a new coat of primer and a smooth coat of gloss black enamel base. I will now take the route of a more fantasy metal shine, probably with Highly Polished Aluminium as the base.